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Saturday, November 14, 2015

Sermon, "Prayerful: Praying Like Jesus," Matthew 6:5-13

Sermon 11/8/15

Matthew 6:5-13

Prayerful: Praying Like Jesus

We’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a
prayerful people. We’ve talked about being confessional, and being persistent
in our prayers. And we’ve talked about how we’re bound together in prayer in
the act of communion, bound together across time and space in the body of
Christ. Next Sunday, we’ll practice praying through music. In two weeks, we’ll
be focusing on prayers of Thanksgiving. Some of you have had experiences, even
over these past few weeks, of the power of prayer, as you gave thanks to God
for some prayer answered. Some of you have offered prayer at one of our
meetings or studies – I’ve really been encouraging everybody to feel comfortable offering a prayer to God on our
behalf. And so far, everyone has survived the experience! Today, though, I want
to spend a little time thinking about Jesus, and how Jesus prays. Jesus does a
lot of praying, and it seems like we can’t find a better example to mold
ourselves after, right? So what can we learn about praying like Jesus?

I found this to be a more challenging question than I
thought. The scriptures mention Jesus praying often, but they don’t always, or
even usually, tell us exactly what Jesus is praying about, which makes complete
sense, because most often, when Jesus prays, he has drawn away, by himself,
away from the crowds, away from even his disciples, often. We know he does it
frequently. And we know it seems to be a way he gives himself fuel, strength,
for the work before him. What does it mean to pray like Jesus? I asked this
question on facebook, and got some good answers:

“I have always been struck by the fact that Jesus went
away to pray; away from the crowds, away from the disciples, all alone with
God.” “To pray like Jesus is to love each other through our daily trials and
joys and to never judge each other.” “To be one with God.” “To pray without
ceasing...to know that Your Father hears you and knows the desires of your
heart. Talking to (sharing your heart with) someone who KNOWS you.” “Pray
without ceasing...why is that is so hard to do sometimes? Like the disciples
drifting off in Gethsemane...” “Pray with our sacred Story and Tradition so
often and deeply that it becomes a part of who you are: the Story becomes my
story. I am struck by the way [Jesus] has the sacred Story as his own
vernacular (as did his mother, see the Magnificat and Hannah's song in Samuel).
Perhaps also to pray the word so completely that you/I become the wordless
living word-we incarnate and live the word/Word. And the quiet contemplative
going apart from the noise to simply be with God. “Praying with your mind, body and soul.” “Becoming
one with the prayer.” I’m blessed to have some thoughtful facebook friends! What
about you? What do you think it means to pray like Jesus?

Jesus teaches
about prayer a few times – and we’ve shared in some of those passages in
worship – Jesus teaching us to pray persistently. Jesus teaching us to pray for
forgiveness and offer forgiveness to others. Jesus teaching us to ask, and
search, and knock, and expect answers in our prayers. In passages we haven’t
read together in worship, Jesus talks about praying like a tax collector, who
prays for mercy, rather than like a Pharisee, who tries to load up his prayer
with telling of his good deeds, in order to somehow impress God. And of course,
in our text for today, we hear that rather than trying to pray with the
fanciest, most eloquent words we can find, actually, a good prayer to pray is
quite simple. It’s the prayer we call the Lord’s Prayer. Most of us pray it by
rote – we pray the same exact words, probably one of the first prayers we
learned. And often, without realizing it, our informal prayers cover many of
the areas the Lord’s Prayer does: praising God; seeking strength to avoid evil;
asking for forgiveness; asking for enough to get by each day. And, without
realizing it, I think we see throughout Jesus’ life his embodiment of the
prayer he teaches us.

So what does it mean to pray like Jesus? Although we may
not know the whole content of Jesus’ prayers, his most intimate conversations
with God, between what he teaches and the discipline of prayer he demonstrates,
I think we glean a lot.

First, prayer is a pattern of his life. It’s necessary to
him. He’s compelled to pray. He needs to
pray. Jesus needs to spend time with
God in serious conversation, and he needs to do it regularly. And the more
full, the more packed the rest of his life is with the relentless needs of
those around him, the relentless demands, the more Jesus prays. He doesn’t get too busy to pray. In fact, he can
sustain his pattern of life because of the way he is grounded in his
relationship with God. I think one of the biggest mistakes we can make in our
life with God is when we view our time for prayer, for reading the scripture,
for deepening our faith, for talking to God as optional, or extra, the first
thing that gets “cut” when we are feeling overwhelmed or exhausted. It’s
tempting, and easy to do. But the pattern of Jesus’ life tells us that
immersing our life in conversation with God needs to be first, not last.

Jesus teaches us here and elsewhere to pray not for show,
but for God. Not to try to impress God, but with humility. We don’t need to explain
to God how good we are. God doesn’t listen to one prayer more than others based
on our goodness. Our prayers are for God, and we don’t have to worry about
impressing God. But all the same, we see that Jesus prayed always with
confidence. His confidence was not in himself, but in God, and his relationship
with God. Praying with confidence is different than praying with the belief
that God will do everything we want, like filling all the requests on a giant
wish list. Praying with confidence in God means trusting that God knows us,
knows our hearts, loves us, and wants us to experience good, abundant, deeply
satisfying life. That’s what we have confidence in. And we have confidence that
nothing is impossible with God. That God can do anything. Knowing that, we pray
with confidence in God.

What did Jesus pray for? We don’t know everything. But we
know a lot. He gave thanks to God many times. He asked for what he wanted and
needed, for comfort, for God to make things easier. He prayed for his
disciples, for the people he saw all around him who seemed lost and vulnerable.
He prayed to ask for forgiveness for others He prayed that others would forgive
each other, that they would experience unity and reconciliation instead of brokenness.
He prayed for new life to come where it seemed death had won the day. He prayed
again and again for God’s kingdom, God’s reign to be realize on earth. He
prayed that he and his followers would be able to carry out God’s vision for
the world. And he prayed, finally, that what he wanted most was for God’s will
to be done on earth, even when it was so hard that it would cost him his life.

I think we can, should, do pray for the very things Jesus
prayed for. We can always ask God for just what we want and need. We pray for
one another, and especially for those who seem lost, who are searching, who are
vulnerable. We pray for forgiveness and that we might be more forgiving, that
we might reconcile with each other. We pray that God’s reign is realized on
earth – that God’s kingdom is made visible right here at Apple Valley – that we
embody God’s hope for the world in this place, as much as we are able, as much
as we can respond to God’s call. We pray for clarity about just what is God
wants for us to do. And we pray, ultimately, that it is what God wants, God’s
will, that is carried out.

As much as we can, let’s pray like Jesus: with
thanksgiving; with confidence; with hope; with constancy; with listening ears;
with open hearts. Amen.